


Swallowing Dust

by billystar



Series: Eerie Crests [3]
Category: Eerie Crests (Webcomic)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hospitals, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Uuuhh, ben and dallas dont know how to cope, blake's a wanker, malek is missing, mentions of abuse, poppy's sad and can't help dallas, they rely on each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 21:47:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12094089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billystar/pseuds/billystar
Summary: Their best friend is missing and they don't know how to cope; Ben and Dallas start to rely on each other for comfort. They are both moons lost in orbit, because the planet they circulate has disappeared into vast nothingness.Dallas learns how to move on; Ben learns how to love his long time crush.Both are heartbroken, but with help they start to feel alive again.





	Swallowing Dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! i'm that one guy that has the Eerie Crests tattoos and won't stop talking about endgame marsowell. Take this fic and enjoy the Benllas angst train my dudes.

Grief is like a downward spiral into a darkness that you wouldn't think had an end. It seeps into your bones until every action is drenched in a state of lethargy that drains the little amount of energy you have left to exist.

 

When Dallas feels like this, it's Ben who finds him choking down pills in the bathroom stall of the boys second floor toilets. The ones that are usually empty.

 

His retching echoes through the tiled room as the door slams open with an aggression that shocks Dallas to the core, but the soft, aching "fuck" that follows is familiar in a way that shocks him. That one word bares all of the speaker's emotions in one heavy weighted curse.

 

The speaker is Ben. Dallas doesn't want to talk with a stomach lined with medicine that isn’t  _ working  _ and a mouth tasting like chemicals and charcoal. He shifts minutely, and hears Ben pause.

 

"Hey dude, is there anyone in here?" His voice isn't quite at his usual level of chirpiness, instead laced with faux cheer. "It doesn't matter if you are, I’ll be going in a second."

 

Dallas can see Ben's feet start heading towards the stall from his position on the floor and in a hurried movement he tries to gather the scattered pill packets he had been making his way through with a rigid determination. He drops one, and it skitters across the floor like a metallic cockroach, right under the door and into Ben's path. Dallas freezes, midway through stuffing the collection of antidepressants, antipsychotics and various other sheet-white, dust-coated pills into his backpack.

 

"Hey bud, you dropped this! You don't need to be embarrassed about taking meds, a lot of people have to." Ben lightly kicks the packet under the door again- and that's when Dallas starts to feel something.

 

It starts at his fingertips, spreads up his arms, to his face - a kind of numbness that feels exactly like dissociating but,  _ not _ .  There's a pull in his gut that reaches up to his throat and a subtle pounding that's begun behind his eyes.

 

Dallas stares at his hands for a second before throwing himself over the toilet, retching at the feel of the powder in his mouth and the slight taste of metal. He doesn't notice when he kicks his bag out the way in his urgency, scattering the packets he had collected in haste outside the confined barrier of the toilet stall.

 

The retching continues and he stops a couple of times to spit up into the bowl. He can't hear anything but the static inside his head telling him to keep it all down and then he'll finally be done with being sad, with missing Malek. 

 

A clear voice breaks through.

 

"Oh, my god, okay- this looks like way too many packets for one day and you do not sound good; fuck! Fuck, I need the nurse- but what if you  _ die _ whilst I'm getting the nurse?! What do I do? What do I do? What do I  _ do _ ?!"

 

Dallas rests his cheek on the side of the bowl and murmurs, "I don' need a nurse. I wanna die, Ben. Jus' lemme die."

 

"Fuck, Dallas?! Oh, God, open the door man, God- fuck, what's Mal gonna say, fuck!"

 

Dallas is watching feet go left and right and left and right in front of the stall and it's making him dizzy: "Come sit down, Ben. Too many feet." He pushes himself off the floor into a kneeling position and slides open the lock, nearly swaying over whilst doing so, and falls back down once it’s unlocked.

 

Dallas is still babbling when Ben grabs ahold of his jaw and jabs his fingers into his mouth, pressing through to the throat and holding them there whilst Dallas gags violently. He keeps them that way until Dallas is shoving with his full strength to escape, only to lean over the toilet and vomit, tears streaking down his face whilst Ben rifles through their backpacks for a water bottle. Once it's found, Ben sits back at Dallas' side, running a hand through his greasy green and red hair, just wanting to fucking help for once. With his other hand he sends off a text to Pheebs and Poppy, simply stating "Nurse OD Boys 2nd flr". He really hopes they get the message.

 

When the God-awful sounds finish for a couple of seconds, and constant shaking wracks Dallas' frame instead of violent lurching, he nudges the bottle against his friends hands with a soft insistence that he had to drink some. Dallas doesn’t say anything but follows the order with a dazed look in his eye, and the slow, shivery movements of a dying man.

 

Once he's finished he hands the water back to Ben and slowly lets his eyes roll shut. "'M tired, Ben. Just want him back" he mumbles. Ben hums in agreement, the energy provided by the adrenaline slowly draining from his frame; his hands are trembling and Dallas reaches out to hold one with his similarly quivering hand.

 

They're silent, and then everything becomes a blur when people arrive.


End file.
